SDNY COURTHOUSE, Nov 6 – When I was
escorted out of federal court in Brooklyn after my press
passes to cover the US v Huawei and US v Clase trials were
confiscated,
I reached out to media freedom and protection groups for
help.
Nearly everyone I asked directed me to the
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. So working
now from the Brooklyn Public Library across Cadman Plaza
from the court, I looked through the RCFP website. Right
at the top of the front page was a red button: LEGAL
HOTLINE. I filled out their form, noting that I was
now missing testimony in both trials.
It was not until the following day
that I heard back from the RCFP hotline. It was a lawyer
calling me, and I thought it could mean they would sue the
Eastern District of New York District Executive's Office,
which had confiscated my press pass and had me
frog-marched out.
Or they could sue the DOJ spokesman
who had put in the call to the District Executive's
office, targeting me for tweeting on a cell phone when
many others in the same courtroom, including right next to
this spokesman, were using their phones.
But no.
The RCFP lawyer said, among other
things - she made it clear they are not my lawyers, so
this is not covered by any attorney client privilege, they
would not take a suddenly banned journalist as their
client - that selective prosecution was hard to prove.
Well, I know that. I said, I am not
asking for legal advice - I'm asking for some action, some
advocacy. Something.
But it was not to be.
Certainly, no journalist has a vested
right to assistance from the Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press. (I've come to wonder in what sense
the group belongs to reporters, or is their Committee.
Which reporters?)
As it became clear, again, that no
help would be forthcoming, I'm sure my tone rose. I did
not swear, but I did ask what the other
journalist-protection work they were doing that made doing
anything for me impossible.
I said, and have now verified, that
the majority of RCFP's appearances, at least in the
Southern District of New York (I can no longer access the
free PACER terminal in the EDNY Clerk's Office) are as amici
in cases with multiple other lawyers, most often pro bono
projects of major white shoe law firms. Is RCFP so needed
there?
The lawyer who a day late returned
my message to the hotline - I will not give her name here
- had as it turned out appeared in two cases in SDNY. The
first was when she was at a large DC law firm,
representing Coventry Capital US LLC in a lawsuit over the
sale of life insurance policies. (That case, after 500
plus filings, reached a confidential settlement, as such
cases most often do).
The second was more public
interest-y, against the Department of Homeland Security.
But in that case there were at least three other law
firms, and four non-profits, suing DHS. Was RCFP so needed
there, that they cannot represent an independent
journalist contacting their hotline right after being
escorted out of a courthouse, with press passes
confiscated?
I told her I had filled out the paperwork to join something called ProJourn, thinking that it might be more for smaller, more independent media. But when I asked them for help appealing the sealing of 90 cases in EDNY, they responded in five minutes that they could not help. And this time ProJourn, as such, did not respond at all.
This conversation is not being productive,
she told me. I told her, as I told the EDNY official
who directed my ouster, that I would be writing an article
about it all, in this case a sort of litmus test of how
the elite or corporate First Amendment industry works.
And now, thirty six hours later (I've spent
28 of them working to try to get my ouster reversed) with
no indication that RCFP has done or will do a single
thing, even a single phone call, about my ouster, I am
writing this first article.
Perhaps I have misread the situation,
and RCFP will do something. Nothing would make me happier,
as a reporter ostensibly with a committee for freedom of
the press. If RCFP acts - with a letter to the Chief Judge
and/or US Attorney whose spokesman started all this, or,
more productive and needed, a public interest lawsuit
- with pleasure I would update and add to this
article. But at week's end, days after contacting the Hot
Line and 36 hours after a belated call back, this is where
things stand: I'm still out.
Another, smaller group did call the EDNY,
and I hope will be doing more. But still in this field,
all roads seemingly lead to RCFP. Should they?
Asking for a friend. Journalists ask questions. And there
are mine. Watch this site.
